My mum had a fairly serious surgery this week and has been staying with me in the city while she recovers. She’s ok, and we’re confident that she will be ok ‘long term’, but she’s had a rough time both physically and emotionally. One of the hardest things about being widowed is that I have this horrible intimate knowledge about how…
Widowed Emotions
The Flowery Pit
Rebecca’s post here a month or two ago sent my mind wandering into yet another metaphor…again I will apologize in advance for my perhaps overuse of this device. It just seems to be one of the ways I deal with the grief; it’s how my mind works, trying to find a way to make sense of it all. She was writing about her trip to Bali and a…
Sensory Math
When Megan died, i went into full sensory deprivation mode. I could no longer see her face, hear her voice, taste her lips, smell her body wash, or touch her skin. When suddenly, all five of my senses were deprived of their primary stimulant, I became numb. I would venture to say that this is the case for most widows and widowers. …
The Warrior and the Wildflowers
Before Drew died, I was not the softest person. Sure I was kind and loving and generous, but mainly just with him – the one person I trusted above all others. I honestly rarely gave anyone else my heartfelt genuine love – because I did not trust people. I always kept everyone but him at arms length, but did I good job of disuising myself as…
A Big Little First
This weekend has been amazing. Challenging, scary, exhausting, sweet, beautiful, silly, and bursting at the seams with love. Mike and Shelby have been here now for 3 days and this afternoon they head home back to Ohio. I can scarcely even put into words how amazing and terrifying all this has been. After countless hours of Skype calls – to meet her…
The Anger isn’t as Important as the Love
Last weekend I attended the wedding of one of my husband’s closest friends. This happened to fall on the second anniversary of his funeral, and a week after his anniversary. I always knew it was going to be a difficult time. I knew it would hurt and bring up all kinds of triggers, sad thoughts and memories. But somehow, despite knowing…
Widows Walk
I am fortunate to have many beautiful family and friends in my life. Today, though, I feel moved to express just how important all my widowed friends are to me. I know I would not be able to walk through my own life now without them. The day Mike died, as we were making all those terrible phone calls, and just after that word “widow” had…
Decade
Thursday, August 6th, would have been Megan and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. A full decade. When I sit quietly to reflect on this, I suppose it would be a fitting end to the gauntlet I’ve been running the past few weeks. After a few months of relatively no significant milestones; her birthday, a trip to Myrtle Beach to spread her ashes,…
Grieving the Grief Years
I had an all-out breakdown a few days ago. The kind I haven’t had in at least a year. I am chocking it up partly to hormones and the damned full moon, but also to everything else going on. Nothing is settled in my life. Most of the time I am used to this, and I ride the waves well. But sometimes it piles up. My career as an artist is sort of like…
Triggered
The other day I went into Sports Authority looking for something – it’s not a store I need to go to very often but it was one of Mike’s favorites. He was so excited when we heard a big sports store was coming to our little island town all those years ago. As I was walking around I was hit with a flood of memories of being in there with him. I…
Start Where You Are
I’m feeling a bit worn down today. I’ve been trying hard the past few weeks to keep a new schedule and really buckle down on getting work done. Working for myself has been the hardest possible thing I could have added to my life these past few years since he died. It never seems to get any easier… unlike the grief, I don’t know that it’ll ever…
Silver Linings Playbook
I’ve noted a shift in my overall attitude since Megan’s death. I was somewhat of a pessimist in years past; always finding the bad news in any nugget of information that may have come my way. Perhaps it was the shock of losing my wife that finally changed my outlook in everyday life. I now take events or news with a different eye, one…